Topic > Hunger and memory recall

Hunger is a primordial sensation that all human beings face and satiate on a daily basis. However, starvation may prove not to be a detriment but rather a potential benefit to human memory. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One study showed that subjects deprived of food for sixteen hours were more likely to recall images of appetizing food than images of nonfood items (Morris and Dolan, 2001). Furthermore, during the subjects' recall period, neuroimaging data showed activation of the amygdala, indicating its involvement in linking hunger and memory recall (Morris & Dolan, 2001). Memory recall refers to subjects remembering specific images shown to them some time ago. The knowledge gap in Morris and Dolan's study concerns both the amount of time the subjects were deprived of food and the specific type of images the subjects were shown. This study aims to compare two groups of subjects, one who had eaten in the last hour and the other who had not eaten for eighteen hours, and their memory of various images part of the Memory Interference Test (MIT). Although Morris and Dolan's study aimed to find a link between hunger improving recall of specific images of food, this study aims to show whether hunger in general results in higher average recall of various images. If it could be shown that starvation leads to better memory recall, then study methods for students could potentially be improved. The null hypothesis states that there was no difference in the average recall of various images between subjects who had eaten within an hour and subjects who had not eaten within eighteen hours. The alternative hypothesis states that subjects who had eaten within an hour had a lower average memory than subjects who had not eaten within eighteen hours. The materials included randomly selected subjects with varying levels of hunger, determined by when they last ate, and a computer with Internet access for the MIT Pictures test located at this hyperlink. Once enough subjects with different hunger levels completed the MIT, comparisons of hunger levels and memory recall began. The groups compared were subjects who had eaten within one hour and subjects who had not eaten within eighteen hours. Recall of various images was measured when MIT quantified an average number of correct responses per group of subjects, and this was the data used in the statistical test. A two-sample t-test was performed for differences in means between the group that had eaten in the hour and the group that had not eaten in the eighteen-hour period using MIT software to compare the groups' memory recall. Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Assay After performing the two-sample T-test, a T-value of -3.243 with a degree of freedom of 225 was obtained. Using the critical value table, the p-value obtained was less than 0, 1%. At the 5% significance level, the data provided sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference in average memory recall in favor of the alternative hypothesis that subjects who had eaten within an hour had a lower average recall than subjects who had eaten and not eaten for eighteen hours.